LITMIR.BIZ

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affair with her, he would not have landed up in a nightmarish parallel universe where life as he knew it was over. Having engineered the opening attack, she was deeply hurt by his admission. Clutching the telephone in her hand, she just wanted the ground to open up and swallow her whole. Her mouth felt as though it was stuffed with cotton wool and her eyes were burning.

      ‘Yes,’ she said stiffly.

      ‘So pack a couple of bags and arrange with Andy to come in later to see to the animals. I’ll get my people to come and rescue you. They’ll come via that dirt road across the fields that leads to the back of the cottage by the disused stable. You’ll get a call from my man; his name is Nicholas. He’ll call you when he’s about to arrive and you can send Claire and Sarah out. They will distract the reporters and you can slip out through the back door.’

      ‘I hate this cloak-and-dagger stuff…’

      ‘In which case, you can brave the paparazzi and their cameras and find yourself in tomorrow’s sleazy tabloid.’

      ‘How come none of this ever happened before?’

      ‘Because a high-profile billionaire businessman, a ditched ex-girlfriend who mixes with celebrities and a pregnant mistress looking after animals in the middle of nowhere has much more sale appeal than a guy who goes away for weekends. Reporters don’t follow trails unless they think the trail is going to lead them somewhere. In the past, coming out to see you at the weekends, I was under the radar. I wasn’t doing anything they cared about.’

      ‘And what happens next—after I’ve abandoned my life to get out of the spotlight? When am I going to be able to return?’

      Luiz’s mouth thinned. ‘Abandoned’ was an emotive word. It would have been hard for her to make it any clearer that she didn’t want him in her life. Tough. Whether she liked it or not, he was in it and he wasn’t going anywhere any time soon.

      ‘Not in the foreseeable future,’ he said, without bothering to beat around the bush.

      ‘What does that mean?’ Holly cried.

      ‘This has all the makings of a soap opera and there’s nothing the gossip pages love more than a soap. Knowing Cecelia, she will be only too happy to stoke the fire out of revenge if she thinks it’ll make life difficult for me.’

      Since when was it a crime to play a situation for his own gain? Luiz wondered. And this sudden development had the potential to work nicely for him. ‘Vengeful ex and pregnant country mistress; well, what can I say? The story could run… and run… and run… You might just have to get used to your sanctuary being trashed by reporters…’

      ‘But they’ll get bored once I leave.’

      ‘They’ll wise up to where you are and hot tail it down to London. The second you try to make it back up north, they’ll be in vigorous pursuit. You have no idea how determined a reporter can be once he thinks he’s onto a story that could sell…’

      Holly was getting more worried by the second. It was true. Some people never seemed to be out of the glossies. Was that because hard-nosed reporters wouldn’t leave them alone? Was her life never going to return to normal?

      ‘I suggest you get down here. You can stay at my place. I’ll make sure that I leave America immediately and we can take things from there.’

      ‘But what about my sanctuary?’

      ‘Andy and the rest of your team can hold the fort. They’re perfectly capable. Oh, and before I forget, pack thoroughly. Include a passport. You have got one, haven’t you?’

      ‘Of course I have!’

      ‘Good, then bring it.’

      ‘But why on earth…?’ The question was left unanswered because Luiz was already informing her that he had to go, cutting short her curiosity and leaving her in a state of confusion and unrest.

      Outside, judging from the quick peek through the curtains, the reporters seemed to be braced for the long haul and had retreated to their cars where they were lurking, smoking and chatting, having thoroughly disturbed her animals. The dogs were still barking, although less hysterically; the ducks were squawking and the various assortment of waifs and strays, from her donkey to the two pigs, were joining in the chorus.

      Claire and Sarah were agog with excitement. Their eyes were like saucers. They both promised not to breathe a word to any of the reporters, and Holly trusted them both implicitly, but she could see that if this was their reaction then Luiz had hit the nail on the head when he had told her that their story could be fodder for nosy reporters.

      As things stood, she had no option but to do as Luiz had suggested. Her immediate future was in his hands and, as she hurriedly packed a couple of bags, she feverishly wondered how things had come to this. She wondered what would have happened if she had never started pushing for more than was on offer. Would he have continued enjoying her enthusiastic, trusting, blind devotion until he got bored or decided that it was time to move on and find a proper candidate for a proper relationship, instead of a pathetic sap who was only cut out to be a fake girlfriend? How could you think you knew someone only to find out that the person you thought you had known was a chimera?

      And now here she was, forced to do as he said because she couldn’t face the prospect of having her life invaded. It was a horrible nightmare. Three hours later, when finally the wheels of motion were beginning to roll and Nicholas, Luiz’s henchman, was ready for her, she had a splitting tension headache.

      Sarah and Claire were thrilled to death at the prospect of running the gauntlet with the reporters, who they claimed were young and cute, and acting as decoys. It smacked of something out of a movie. They were ridiculously excitable, but the ploy worked, and for the next hour and a half Holly shared the same weird feeling that she was in a movie. The drive to the field, the helicopter ride, the silent drivers and, finally, the stealthy entrance into Luiz’s house, all felt unreal. Her life was no longer her own. But once she was in the house she felt completely protected. Luiz had left a message on her phone, informing her that he would be in early the following morning.

      We’ll take it from there,’ his message had read. Until he arrived, Holly explored the mansion he called home. It was a distraction from dealing with the tangle of thoughts whirring round and round in her head. The last time she had been in the house, she had barely noticed the surroundings. Now, as she took her time exploring the multitude of rooms, she could truly appreciate the grandeur. Even the smallest details screamed ‘money’. There were no personal giveaways, no family pictures on display. The entire house could have been transposed into an upmarket lifestyle magazine and no one would have been able to guess the identity of its owner.

      There was ample food in the fridge and, after a light meal, she retired upstairs to one of the guest bedrooms where she promptly fell into a deep, untroubled sleep. She was utterly exhausted. When she groggily surfaced hours later, it was to weak sunshine streaming through a crack in the curtains and, wriggling onto her side, to the sight of Luiz hunkered on a chair he had dragged and positioned next to the bed.

      Disoriented, she could only stare for a few seconds. Had he just stepped into the house? He was in a pair of dark trousers and a white shirt, the sleeves of which he had shoved up to his elbows. She had to forcibly squash the rebellious bit of her mind that wanted to play with images of how those long fingers had touched her all over her body. Nostalgia for what now seemed like a time of innocence ripped through her and she had the strangest desire to burst into tears.

      ‘How long have you been sitting there?’ she asked instead, wriggling into a sitting position.

      Thanks to the heavy curtains, it was still dark in the bedroom even though it was after ten, but not so dark that Luiz couldn’t see how her body had changed. Sexual awareness leapt through him and he adjusted his position on the chair.

      ‘Five minutes at the most.’ He stood up, flexed his muscles and strolled across to the window. ‘I came to wake you up but you were out for the count.’

      ‘I was tired.’

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